Preliminary study of climate variability in La Picasa shallow lake, Santa Fe Province, Argentina.

ALIAGA, V S.; FERRELLI, F; PICCOLO M.C.; PERILLO, G.M.E.

Quebec

Workshop; Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network 16 (GLEON 16).; 2014

Climate variability is one of the most important topics to understand the spatial dynamics of water bodies. This variability may cause economical impacts on tourism, decrease in fishing and damages due to the floods. In La Picasa shallow lake, located in Santa Fe Province, Argentina extreme events are challenging public institutions to focus on developing adequate structures mainly to mitigate the occurrence of floods. In the last decade, hydrological events affected the local population and their activities. We present the preliminary results of the analysis of the effects of climate variability on La Picasa shallow lake. Data from a meteorological station located northeast of the lake was processed. The study period is 1960-2010. Decadal, inter-annual and inter-seasonal time scales were applied to analyze this information. Satellite images were processed to characterize the spatial dynamics. Results showed that wet extreme events were more intensive than dry ones. The positive anomalies of precipitation ranged between 500 to 800 mm per year, while the negative ones between 300 to 350 mm per year. During the study period, the mean temperature increased 0.5 ºC. Thermal anomalies ranged between +/- 1ºC. In addition, the relative humidity increased 5 % and the variations of wind intensity were significant along the period. These analysis results could be useful to public organisms that are working on lake management.